The New York Times report today that the Koch brothers have moved closer to purchasing the Los Angeles Times sent shivers through Angelenos like me who cling to Thomas Jefferson’s admonition about the importance of the freedom of the press.

"The only security of all is in a free press,”...

There are two ways to look at Google Glass, the eyeware-spyware the Internet Goliath is releasing later this year. Glass half full: It services us for convenience. Glass half empty: it services the corporation by allowing our eyeglasses to record every public and private moment that goes into a digital...

If you're a fan of the Godfather, you have to love any book that says all you have to know about managing a crisis you already learned from Vito Corleone.

Masters of Disaster is the perfect playbook for how to...

If you doubt that writing the White House can make a difference, just look at the letter my Consumer Watchdog colleague Judy Dugan and I wrote to the President in January calling for an audit of the inflated MPG claims for the Hyundai Elantra. Friday, the EPA...

Revelations of discrimination by insurance companies are always shocking, but when they come out just days before a vote on an industry-sponsored ballot measure that would legalize unfair price increases and prejudice in auto insurance, Californians should pay particular attention.

A former insurance agent from the Auto Club of Southern...

Populist governor Hiram Johnson gave Californians the ballot initiative one hundred and one years ago to combat the stranglehold of wealthy scions over the statehouse. Today's New York Times reports on how California's ballot measures are dominated by a handful of billionaires, including some trying to buy...

This smart video jamming Google's "Chrome Coffee" commercial gives a glimpse into the mind of the Internet Goliath's online tracking program.

Google provides amazing technology, but 98% of its revenue is from advertising. So Google's cloud is based on what Google learns about us so that it can sell...

Two years ago, as federal health reform lay on death's door, CEO Angela Braly, head of Blue Cross' parent company Wellpoint, spit on beleaguered patients. She sat through poignant Congressional testimony from...

Starting this week one million Californians will pay hundreds of millions of dollars more for their health insurance. It's a plot right out of Groundhog Day, only it happens every Spring, Winter, Summer and Fall.

Health insurance rates in California are like a runaway train and there's no police force...

Shouldn't the CEOs of health insurance companies like Blue Shield have to sign under penalty of perjury that their rate hikes are justified? If the first online signature gathering for a ballot petition is successful, Californians will vote on that proposition in November, and are almost sure to...

Last week an upset Honda Civic Hybrid owner won a $9,000 small claims victory against Honda for widely misrepresenting the miles per gallon on her Civic. Hyundai told my group Consumer Watchdog Thursday it would not advertise its 40 miles per gallon claim about the Elantra in its Super Bowl...

It's been a big day for those of us who have been making the case that Google steers users not to the most relevant products and services, but to its own services.  This morning in Brussels, Consumer Watchdog called upon European privacy officials to investigate such antitrust issues, including...

In a remarkable act of either stupidity or brinksmanship, the Obama Administration challenged the US Supreme Court to either keep the federal individual mandate to buy health insurance or throw out with it some of the most important consumer protections in the federal health care overhaul.

The Justice...

With a simple signature, California Governor Jerry Brown has struck a blow for populism in the ballot initiative process by signing a new law to clarify that all ballot initiatives be voted on in November, when twice the number of voters show up, rather than in primary elections.

This week...

The clock ticking down on the last night in the California statehouse is always a lot like waiting for last call at a rowdy bar around 2 AM -- you wonder how much damage will done before the last shot.

For years my colleagues and I have stood watch on...

If Facebook's new facial recognition software isn't scary enough, imagine Mark Zuckerberg's face replacing George Washington's on the dollar bill. Or rubbing out all the dead presidents on every bit of American currency.

July 4th may be Independence Day for America, but...

No CEO ever likes to testify before Congress, but Google's CEOs, past (Eric Schmidt) and present (founder Larry Page), are going so far out of their way to avoid testifying in Congress that they are begging for a subpoena.

Bloomberg is...

The quote of the month goes to Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll, which is out with a poll that shows Arnold Schwarzenegger with a 75% disapproval rating among voters and with 90% of Los Angeles residents rejecting him.

DiCamillo told the San Francisco Chronicle: ...

Today California’s Democratic state lawmakers announced a budget plan to keep their paychecks coming that included one of the worst ideas Arnold Schwarzenegger had since impregnating his kids’ nanny.

If lawmakers don’t...

U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller did the American people a great favor today by introducing the Do-Not-Track-Online Act of 2011.

iPhone and Android users should not have to worry about being spied on by their smart phones. We should be able to say no to Google and...